Only three weeks after finishing in fourth at the 2026 Cocodona 250 Mile, American Heather Jackson is gearing up for a completely different event: the 350-mile Unbound XL gravel cycling event. It’s a race she won with a course record last year. She’s planning on following that up a couple of weeks later with the 2,745-mile Tour Divide self-supported bikepacking race stretching north to south across western Canada and the western United States. And two months after that? UTMB.
Heather Jackson finishes seventh at the 2024 Western States 100. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Completing just one of these events would be enough for most athletes, but Jackson is trying to fit all of them into one season. Why these races? Between Cocodona 250 Mile, Unbound XL, Tour Divide, and UTMB, Jackson has chosen the Super Bowl equivalents in 200 milers, gravel cycling, bikepacking, and mountain ultrarunning. Jackson explains, “I am always intrigued by racing the big races where the best are there, and seeing, ‘Ok, this is where I stack up.’” Jackson is far more than an elite ultrarunner, and when she came to trail running in 2022, she had no intention of doing it in a conventional manner.
In an ultrarunning world where most top athletes follow reasonably predictable schedules leading up to their main race of the year, Jackson is choosing to do the exact opposite. With a seventh-place finish at the 2024 Western States 100 and fifth at the 2024 CCC on her resume, Jackson can be considered in the upper echelons of professional runners, yet in many aspects of her approach, training, and race preparation, she couldn’t be more different.
Jackson is perhaps best known in the ultrarunning world as an athlete who also excels at gravel bike racing, and she has no intention of abandoning one sport in order to specialize in the other. As a professional triathlete for 15 years with four top-five finishes at the Ironman World Championships, she’s done the full-focus thing, she’s optimized her preparation for the one big dance of the year, she’s committed a full year of training to a single performance — multiple times. But at 42 years old, she says, “I’d rather do both [gravel cycling and ultrarunning] at this point in my career because for me, these years have been bonus years.”
After retiring from professional triathlon in 2022, absolute peak performance was no longer the goal. “I wanted to try these new things. Is Cocodona 250 the best prep for Unbound XL or Tour Divide?” she asks. Jackson knows the answer is “probably not.” One can also speculate that riding a bike across the U.S. for two-plus weeks without any outside support is also an unconventional approach to running UTMB later in the summer. She explains, “But this is what I want: to see what I can do. On a personal level, I love doing both. I’m inspired and intrigued by both, and I’m letting go of, ‘Ok, this isn’t necessarily the best prep.’”
Heather Jackson racing the 2024 Unbound 200 a few weeks before placing seventh at the 2024 Western States 100. Photo courtesy of Heather Jackson.
Jackson has already had a career that any professional athlete would be proud of. Now, instead of chasing a result at a single A-race, she’s opting for multiple events that excite her — regardless of the sport — and if the past few years have shown anything, the approach seems to be working.
Growing Up on Ice
Jackson grew up in New Hampshire playing all the sports. Her mom was a physical education teacher and threw Jackson and her three siblings into anything that she was coaching or refereeing after school. This led to exposure to everything from softball to skiing to lacrosse. Jackson laughs when she says, “I think it was just child care, but also us expending energy.”
For Jackson, soccer and ice hockey stuck. “I remember we went to one of the first [FIFA Women’s] World Cup soccer games in 1994, and I was obsessed with playing the World Cup. And then when I got into hockey, we would watch NHL [National Hockey League], and there were two women that played in the NHL, Cammi Granato, and then there was a goalie, and I was like, ‘I want to play in the NHL.’” Exceling in both throughout high school, she was recruited by various colleges for both sports. Ultimately, she chose the Division I ice hockey program at Princeton University because of the educational opportunities it offered. Throughout her collegiate career, she had her eye on making the U.S. team for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Italy, spending her summers training with the under-18 and then under-22 national teams at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, New York. When the 27-person team for the Games was announced, Jackson wasn’t on it. As a college senior, and with few non-collegiate ice hockey opportunities available at the time, she moved on from the sport after graduation.
Heather Jackson crossing the American River during the 2024 Western States 100. Photo: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
Very few professional runners come from a background in ice hockey, but Jackson thinks that growing up in the sport has ultimately led to her longevity as an athlete. In her early years in sport, instead of worrying about her weight — as is common amongst many runners of all ages — she says, “I had the opposite. I was 40 pounds heavier than I am now, needing to carb-load on pasta every night. I was in the weight room lifting.” Jackson points out, “I’ve only had one serious injury, a stress fracture,” but goes on to laugh, “Versus I’ve rolled my ankle in trail running so many times because my ankles are so weak because they were in skates for 20 years. They didn’t have to work on their own.”
In 2006, with a political science degree and a teaching certificate to her name, Jackson admits that after college, there was a bit of a “now what?” moment. Lacking clear direction, she accepted a teaching position in ninth-grade world history and moved to San Jose, California.
While the teaching didn’t work out — “I wasn’t a good disciplinarian,” Jackson admits — the move opened up opportunities for 22-year-old Jackson that set her life on a completely different trajectory.
Finding Triathlon
Before leaving New Hampshire, Jackson had joined her parents for a local triathlon, riding a mountain bike that she’d had since she was a kid. It was her first time doing an individual sport in a long time, and she was immediately hooked by the possibilities, “It was this first time that it was like, ‘This is on me. If I worked on this, I could be even better.’” San Jose had an active triathlon community, and Jackson was soon entrenched.
She quickly met her future husband, Sean “Wattie” Watkins, on a group ride, and she says, “He was like, ‘You could totally go pro at this. You’re so strong. You should give it a try.’ And for me, it was like, “Ok, I don’t have to teach. Let’s give this a try.” It was a serendipitous confluence of circumstances, as Watkins worked for “Triathlon Magazine” and used his industry connections to rustle up support for Jackson. By 2010, after finishing second at the 2009 Ironman 70.3 Austin, she’d secured herself a spot on the Trek/K-Swiss Professional Triathlon Team. Always a strong cyclist, she’d started shifting her body composition from that of an ice hockey player to an endurance athlete, getting lighter and improving her swimming and running. Focusing on three different sports had its appeals: “You have three things to get better at. You always have something to work on.”
Heather Jackson had a successful 15-year professional career in triathlon. Photo courtesy of Heather Jackson.
Over the next 12 years, Jackson became obsessed with the Ironman World Championships held in Kona, Hawaii, and structured each year around arriving on the island ready to compete. She placed in the top five four times between 2015 and 2019, finishing as high as third in 2016, but the world title remained elusive.
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down pools and restricted Jackson’s ability to train in her weakest sport, combined with changes surrounding the politics of Ironman, triathlon started to lose its appeal. She raced her final Ironman Kona in 2022.
Moving to Trails and Gravel
Jackson says that when she transitioned away from triathlon and into gravel cycling and trail running, “I didn’t think it was going to become kind of a second career.” She explains, “I knew I was done with triathlon — I just didn’t have that drive anymore — but I had a year or two left with different sponsors and had told them I wanted to try these other things, and they were all on board.”
In August of 2022, Jackson placed third at the 150-mile Gravel Worlds in Lincoln, Nebraska, and then in October, she placed fifth at the Javelina 100 Mile. In 2023, she won some of the biggest gravel races in the U.S., and then went back to win the Javelina 100 Mile, as well as the Canyons 50k. A year later, she finished seventh at the 2024 Western States 100, just a few weeks after finishing fifth at the Unbound 200 Mile, one of the most competitive gravel races in the U.S.
Heather Jackson winning the 2023 Belgian Waffle Ride San Diego. Photo courtesy of Heather Jackson.
If Jackson was ready for the physical rigors of professional ultrarunning and gravel racing, she was surprised by the rapidly changing level of professionalism in both sports. She says, “Both gravel and trail running feel like where triathlon was 15 years ago, where now they are these professional sports. I came from being kind of done with the high-performance side of triathlon and needing something more relaxing, like ‘Ok, trail running: We get to run up some mountains. Or gravel: We’re just riding through these off-road cool spots.’ I wanted to try these sports and enjoy them.”
But instead of getting sucked into the increasing professionalism and everything that goes along with it, including specialization, Jackson is charting her own path. “I’m not treating these two new sports like I did triathlon. I specialized in that for so long. This is, ‘I’m training as hard as I can.’ I want to do both. We’ll see if I can.”
An Ecclectic and Ambitious 2026
Jackson understands that to be at the very pinnacle of a sport, specialization is likely required; she just has no interest in doing so. “I think it’s a combination of where I’m at in my career and wanting to try both. I want to try to do my best. I love to race. If I’m starting a race — I don’t want this to sound cocky — I’m going for the win. I want to race at the front.”
Jackson’s 2026 race schedule looks like the combined schedules of an elite ultrarunner, gravel racer, and bikepacker, the latter a new sport for Jackson. Wanting to go even further on a bike, she’s adding multi-day, self-supported bikepacking to her resume — where riders navigate an unmarked course without any outside support — and in June, she’s starting with the biggest race on the calendar: the 2,745-mile Tour Divide, stretching from Banff, Alberta, Canada, to the Mexican border at Antelope Wells, New Mexico.
Heather Jackson racing through the night to set a new course record at the 2025 Unbound XL. Photo courtesy of Heather Jackson.
There’s excitement behind each race, “Cocodona was first on the calendar. I signed up for it last year during the race. Then I raced UTMB [in 2025] and was just disappointed in how it had gone. So those were the two on the run side that I wanted on the calendar for this year.” Then around those, she’s packed in other top running and cycling events.
She started the year with a sixth-place finish at the Big Alta 50k and won the Desert RATS 100k, securing her an entry to UTMB this summer. Next came the Cocodona 250 Mile, where she ran in podium position for much of the race before sleep deprivation got the best of her in the final miles of the race. Having never done an event that long, she says she didn’t have the right mindset when things started to go sideways in the final section, where she couldn’t have a pacer. “I think I was panicked. I didn’t know where I was. I was having all these hallucinations and just got scared by them. Versus, I talked to Rachel [Entrekin] after, and she’s like, ‘Yeah, I love it. I’m just like, ‘Bring it on.’” In summary, she says, “It was going great until it wasn’t, basically.”
Heather Jackson winning the 2026 Desert RATS 100k and earning a spot in UTMB. Photo: UTMB/Glen Delman
With Cocodona just three weeks past, Jackson is lining up to defend her title at the 2026 Unbound XL on May 29, a 350-mile gravel race that she won with a course record time last year of 20:57:57. From there, she has just two weeks until Tour Divide. She says she’s still uncertain if she’ll start the event with the group on June 12, or delay for a couple of weeks for a bit more recovery and do an individual time trial.
From the end of that, Jackson will have approximately nine weeks to recover and ramp back up for UTMB, a race she wanted to return to after struggling in the cold conditions in 2025 and placing a disappointing 19th.
Of course, there are a few other bike events planned for later in the year after returning from Europe.
Giving Back Through Storytelling
If the COVID-19 pandemic opened the door to gravel cycling and trail running, it also provided the right conditions for Jackson and her husband to create a YouTube channel and video production company, Dirt Brigade. What started as creating training vlogs to give back to sponsors during a period without racing has turned into an opportunity to tell important stories in the trail running space.
Jackson during the early miles of the 2024 Western States 100. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Now, in addition to regular videos documenting her own racing, Dirt Brigade has had the chance to work with Hoka on a series called “Courage to Try.” The series, which has three released episodes with more on the way, follows individual women as they balance life, running, responsibilities, and fear while exploring themes of resilience and community. Jackson sees it as an opportunity both for the present and the future. “I’m older. I get it. But I had said to [Hoka], ‘I’m hoping at this point in my career to do some sort of project where I’m able to give back.’”
Embracing the Unknown
For a runner at the beginning of their career, a top-10 finish at Western States followed by a top five at CCC might be an incentive to double down on running to see just how good they can get. But for Jackson, the days of singular focus are in the rearview. The driving forces are now the personal goal of seeing what’s possible and doing things that excite her.
Jackson knows that what she’s attempting this year is a giant step into the unknown. As the season progresses, there’s a good chance that things will not go as planned. But Jackson is ready to learn from it all. Whether it’s the effects of sleep deprivation during Cocodona or whatever other issues she’ll encounter and have to problem-solve through during the rest of her summer, it’s all one big experiment.
Jackson comes through Pointed Rocks during the 2024 Western States 100 on her way to a seventh-place finish. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
When Jackson came over to gravel cycling and trail running, she was looking to learn new skills and take a more laid-back approach to sports than she’d done with triathlon. There wasn’t the pressure of creating a long-term career in either sport. When she found herself in the upper ranks of both, she refused to deviate from her course. It’s clear she’s going to do things her way and for her own reasons: because it’s fun.
Call for Comments
- Do you have a Heather Jackson story you can share?
- Which race are you most excited to see Heather race in?
